The interesting fact here is that the U.S.-owned contribu...

The interesting fact here is that the U.S.-owned contribution to global value chains is increasingly becoming "stateless": it is not the U.S. that is providing intellectual property services to kick-off the production process, but rather the Cayman Islands. How much international tax arbitrage and evasion is contributing to the polarization of wealth remains unclear to me. But I do find it deeply worrisome:

Mark Thoma sends us to: Brad Setser: Vietnam Looks To Be Winning Trump's Trade War: "Vietnam, like China really doesn���t import very many manufactures from the United States. That���s partially a function of the fact that the value added in Vietnam is often low, and thus Vietnam cannot afford a lot of top of the line U.S. capital goods (yet). But it is also a function of the fact that many of the global value chains that generate large (often offshore) profits for U.S. firms don���t give rise to that much U.S. production these days.��There just isn���t much sign that the Asian value chains stretch back to include U.S. factories and workers. Fabless semiconductor firms that design chips likely��export their designs to a low tax jurisdiction before they license their designs��to an Asian contract manufacturer. The rise in Vietnam's exports hasn't been associated with a commensurate rise in exports from the United States to Vietnam...

#noted